flycoy Posted September 6, 2015 Report Share Posted September 6, 2015 Managed to get out yesterday afternoon onto some wheat stubble, nowadays I never seem to catch the right time for bales to still be on the field especially on this perm as the farmer rears beef so the straw is his winter bedding and he tends to get them in sharpish. but with the rain he has been too busy trying to get the other fields cut and baled so this one field still has the bales out. Looked promising. Got there around 2.00 and pulled into the gateway to see around 100 birds on the ground and maybe 50 leaving the trees, only had 3 hours as I had to me back for family stuff so didn't hang about to watch the proceedings. When we run the courses I would tell people to sit, wait and watch for 20 mins to see where they are entering the filed and where to set up! with knowing this field well, I only had 2 choices of where to set up, either one end or the other. one side of the field has farm workshops and a bed and breakfast, the other a well used foot path for the castle so like the M6 on a sunny Saturday afternoon! When bales are available I will always go for the middle of the field, but this would of put me too close to everything so I chose to the middle of the width but down towards one end, if that makes sense. the only problem was a power line that they don't seem to like flying too close to. Got to work on trying to get the bales together, they were the big round ones, they never seem very close together when you trying to move them and up hill as well. got to make sure you keep the dogs away from the intended path and take care when moving them safety wise and money wise if you break them open! Finally got them into position like a u shape, one at the back, one either side all on edge, left me with a back rest and around 6 ft deep hide. I then put a few poles along the front with a desert sand camo net over the front, chucked the gear and some water for the 2 dogs in and set out 24 flock coated decoys in a tick shape towards the wind which was from my left shoulder in the hide. I put a floater on the right side end and a couple on top of a bale or 2. by the time I had moved the pickup out of site the birds had started flighting from the direction the wind was coming and the game keeper had turned up to help me set up, too late again must have watched me move the bales on my own from his truck!. "I fetch my gun if that's ok, be back asap" so I put 2 seats up and started with out him, at first the birds wouldn't decoy as the first few shots were getting them up from cut fields across the farm so they were a bit all over, easy to panic and reset everything but give it sometime to see what develops. by the time the GK got back with the tea and gun I had 4 in the bag and the birds were starting to decoy, the odd one not too sure of the power lines. thing to do in a bale hide is try and keep an all round look at whats coming as they can easily catch you out coming low over the bales from behind. They decoyed ok, but a lot were going else where onto a field the farmer was turning cut straw on trying to dry it, we couldn't shoot it obviously but a lot of birds where going in and out as he moved up and down the field. I put the flapper out and this made a difference the birds came in and flew around the back of the hide and into the pattern from the right, nice! had a couple of Rooks and Crows and put them out too, so they made the pattern more realistic, a few birds could see us so will be buying another sand camo net for a roof at the Midland GF. We finished the short session with 22 pigeon 7 corvids, not a massive bag but a great afternoon in a very rarely available bale hide, the shot birds were all good decoyed birds, really enjoy seeing them turning, setting and committing to the decoys and learning from the effects of moving decoys around. means more to me than a big bag everytime. Fair bit of p.... taking when either of us missed!! Flycoy Will be doing my best to get out in the week before its all ploughed over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pigeon controller Posted September 6, 2015 Report Share Posted September 6, 2015 Well done , good report and result for a short session . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDog Posted September 6, 2015 Report Share Posted September 6, 2015 A good report. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bakerboy Posted September 6, 2015 Report Share Posted September 6, 2015 Good day by the sounds of it, well done. Is wabbitbosher still knocking out Desert camo netting? See you at the Midland Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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